In court filings Friday, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York linked President Trump to two crimes his former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to committing on his behalf in 2016. "What the prosecutors did not say in Mr. Cohen's sentencing memorandum," The New York Times reported Sunday, "is that they have continued to scrutinize what other executives in the president's family business may have known about those crimes, which involved hush-money payments to two women who had said they had affairs with Mr. Trump," porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The federal prosecutors did not directly accuse Trump of committing a crime, but they said Friday that "with respect to both payments, [Cohen] acted in coordination with and at the direction of" Trump. Cohen has said he believed Trump personally approved the Trump Organization's decision to reimburse him for the hush payments, and he told prosecutors that the company's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, was involved in discussions about the payments, the Times reports.
"While the prevailing view at the Justice Department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the prosecutors in Manhattan could consider charging him after leaving office," the Times notes. Trump still owns the Trump Organization through a trust, and the company and its executives — including Trump's children — are not protected by the Justice Department opinion against prosecuting Trump in office.
"There's a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House intelligence committee, said on CBS's Face The Nation. "The bigger pardon question may come down the road as the next president has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump." Schiff has previously said the intelligence committee will examine Trump's family business. Peter Weber
Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders will leave his job next month, The New York Times reported.
Sanders has served as the agency's acting head since the previous commissioner Kevin McAleenan left to head the Department of Homeland Security in April. His departure comes as CBP faces growing criticism of its treatment of detained migrant children, though The Washington Post's Nick Miroff cites a DHS official in saying that isn't the cause of Sanders' resignation.
CBP has long faced scrutiny over its treatment of migrants at the border, especially under President Trump's administration. That ramped up last week amid reports that nearly 300 minors, some as young as 2 and half years old, were facing unsanitary conditions at a Clint, Texas detention facility. Most of them had been transferred out of the facility and to a tent camp on Monday, but on Tuesday, CBP reportedly moved 100 of those children back.
Before heading CBP, Sanders was the agency's chief operating officer and is a close ally of McAleenan. Sanders offered his resignation to McAleenan on Monday, saying it would be effective July 5, The Wall Street Journal notes. He didn't elaborate on his reasons for resigning. Kathryn Krawczyk
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) misused thousands of dollars of campaign funds during the course of multiple extramarital relationships, federal prosecutors said in new court filings.
Hunter was previously indicted for allegedly putting $250,000 in campaign funds to personal use, and the Justice Department now says this included funds he used to "pursue a series of intimate personal relationships" with at least five women, Politico reports.
Prosecutors said that all of these women were involved in politics in some way, and he allegedly carried out multiple affairs with lobbyists. The court filing, for instance, details a trip Hunter allegedly took with a lobbyist to Lake Tahoe, during which he put about $1,000 for his hotel bill on his campaign credit card, also using campaign funds to pay for airfare and a $7 beer, reports USA Today's Brad Heath.
The filing also describes additional alleged relationships with lobbyists, as well as a House aide, who prosecutors said he took out for drinks that he paid for using campaign funds. They said he had affairs with a woman who worked in his office as well, plus another woman who worked in the House of Representatives, The Washington Post reports.
“Carrying out all these affairs did not come cheap — Hunter spent thousands of dollars treating women to meals, drinks, and vacations, and traveling to and from their homes,” prosecutors said, The Daily Beast reports. They also said Hunter's use of campaign funds was "necessary for Hunter to satisfy his desire for intimacy" due to the Hunters' "financial difficulties."
Hunter has denied any illegal activity. His wife, who was also indicted, recently changed her plea to guilty, and prosecutors in their latest filing say that she may be called to testify. The trial is set for Sept. 10. Brendan Morrow
President Trump's cough criticism was about much more than germs.
During an ABC News interview that aired last week, Trump's insistence that his Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "leave the room" if he was "going to cough" stole the show. It's true that Trump is a "germaphobe who does not like shaking hands or being around sick staffers," and some staffers saw the incident as a reflection of that, Politico reports. Yet other Trump allies saw it as "the public airing of Trump's newfound irritation with his acting chief," Politico continues.
Mulvaney has been Trump's top aide since John Kelly departed at the end of last year, but still hasn't lost his title's "acting" designation. Yet White House staffers insist that doesn't mean Mulvaney will be ousted soon, seeing as Trump "likes the hands-off approach Mulvaney has taken to his schedule, whims and decision-making style," Politico reports. Instead, that not-so-temporary title, along with the ongoing insults, seem to be the president's way of "assert[ing] his dominance over an ally or staffer who Trump feels has gotten too big for his britches," Politico continues.
Those pompous moves Mulvaney is allegedly making? Filling the West Wing with his former Office of Management and Budget staffers, piling his favorite aides onto Air Force One trips, and organizing three senior staff retreats to Camp David, to name a few.
Both Mick Mulvaney and outgoing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to requests for comment. Read more at Politico. Kathryn Krawczyk
Most Democratic voters want to hear less about North Korea and more about climate change in this week's Democratic primary debates, a new Morning Consult/Politico poll finds.
The Democratic voters said it was "very important" that the candidates discuss climate change, gun policy, and abortion, while U.S. tensions with Iran and North Korea, and trade issues concerning China and Mexico, take a back seat. Of those foreign policy issues, Iran leads the charge, but it still fails to reach the 50 percent threshold, coming in at 47 percent. North Korea, China, and Mexico all hovered in the thirties.
Meanwhile, climate change — which many voters want to serve as the sole topic for a single debate — led the field with 63 percent, followed by gun policy at 62, and the wave of recent restrictive abortion bills at 60.
All in all, it seems, Democratic voters don't want President Trump to take over the debate stage, at least not entirely — 44 percent of those polled said they think it's "very important" that he comes up as a topic of discussion.
The poll was conducted online between June 21-24 among a sample of 1,991 registered voters across the United States. The margin of error was two percentage points. Read more at Morning Consult. Tim O'Donnell